California school newspaper's story on student working in porn runs as planned

By Nicholas FilipasThe Stockton (Calif.) Record

Monday

May 6, 2019 at 4:30 PM

A controversial article about a Bear Creek High School student working in adult entertainment ran as planned Friday in The Bruin Voice newspaper after the Lodi Unified School District said it would not stand in the way of its publication.

STOCKTON, Calif. — A controversial article about a Bear Creek High School student working in adult entertainment ran as planned Friday in The Bruin Voice newspaper after the Lodi Unified School District said it would not stand in the way of its publication.

The decision is the latest development in a heated debate about First Amendment rights after teacher Kathi Duffel refused to allow the district to review the article prior to publication. Additionally, Duffel’s job was threatened if she did not comply.

The article, written by junior Bailey Kirkbey, is a profile of 18-year-old Caitlin Fink and focuses on the challenges she faces, how she has managed to overcome them and how she has created a successful career for herself in porn.

“In her freshman year, she said her grades were really bad and she was associating with the wrong group of people,” Kirkbey told The Record last week. “It’s just profiling how she managed to overcome these kinds of obstacles and to get to where she is now, where she has a successful career and is living on her own money — she is self-reliant.”

Fink, who is estranged from family, said in a phone interview Thursday that she felt it was important to share her story to help educate others on the reality of working in porn. She then suggested that she’s not the only young person who may be thinking about entering the industry.

“People think that in porn it’s all fun and games, but it’s not,” Fink said. “It actually takes a toll on your body and people don’t last long. You can’t stay in it forever.”

The article and its subject matter eventually found its way to the top of Lodi Unified administration. Duffel received a letter from Superintendent Cathy Nichols-Washer on April 11 that directed the award-winning journalism instructor to not publish the story until it could be reviewed for any possible obscene and defamatory content that goes against state education code.

“The district has received information that [the] interview will focus primarily on her production of adult videos,” the letter read. “Given this focus, the district is reasonably concerned that the article may contain material prohibited by Education Code section 48907.”

District officials said they are legally required to ensure that publications do not violate education codes, requiring districts to prevent the publication of obscenity, defamation, and incitement.

As California does not prevent prior review of high school newspapers, the reasons for preventing publication are limited to slander, libel, obscenity or articles that might so incite students as to present a “clear and present danger of the commission of unlawful acts on school premises or the violation of lawful school regulations, or the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school,” according to Education Code Section 48907.

The letter concluded: “Accordingly, should you fail to provide a copy of the article as directed, you may be subject to discipline, up to, and including dismissal.”

Duffel, who has worked for the district for more than 30 years and helped create The Bruin Voice in 1991, was shocked. “This is a whole new level of district administrators who have lost their minds, quite frankly,” she said last week.

In a response letter to Nichols-Washer, Duffel and her seven student editors, including Kirkbey, told the district that it “grossly mischaracterized the focus and intent” of the article and added the district failed to prove the story was in violation of any educational codes.

“It speaks to the very realities that our students live every day of their lives,” wrote Duffel, adding that she was going to submit the article for an award to the Journalism Education Association.

“It speaks to every 14-year-old freshman who is sitting in class reading the article who has failed three classes her freshman year and now has a choice to make — and our hope is that this article will help students think more critically about the choices they do make at this age in their lives.”

Duffel and the student editors respectfully declined to submit the story to administrators for review.

Fink was in good spirits Thursday and said she has gotten mostly positive responses about her willingness to be so open. But she criticized Lodi Unified’s handling of the article, saying officials made matters worse by overreacting.

“The district did way too much. They shouldn’t have made this into a deep situation; it didn’t have to be like that,” Fink said. “People think sex work isn’t work, but it is work. You’re just taking off your clothes.”

In the days that followed the letter to district administrators, Duffel contacted the Student Press Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., and was connected with San Francisco attorney Matthew Cate, who agreed to take her case pro bono.

Lodi Unified then agreed to a proposal made by Duffel to allow her to bring in an outside independent attorney to review the article to see if it violated state law.

District officials later learned that the outside independent attorney was actually Cate. Although citing disappointment in the decision, Lodi Unified said it would consider the review “in good faith.”

Ultimately, Cate determined that the article did not violate any education codes and provided the district with his findings.

“There is no basis for censoring the article or for seeking any review beyond that already conducted by Ms. Kirkeby, her fellow student editors, Ms. Duffel, and me,” Cate wrote in the letter that was obtained by The Record.

“We hope you and the entire Bear Creek High community enjoy reading it when it comes out on Friday.”

Duffel forwarded The Record’s request for comment to Cate, who said because his clients took a stand for student expression and had the “grit” to see the process through, a completely lawful article is being published without any further interference from Lodi Unified.

“We’re all better off for this outcome,” Cate said. “Going forward, the district must respect the free-speech rights of its students and the duty of advisers like Ms. Duffel to help protect those rights. And it must keep in mind that threatening or retaliating against advisers for carrying out that responsibility violates the law.”

Lodi Unified officials said while they will have to rely on Cate’s findings, they do not agree with all aspects of his opinion.

“Moreover, because the district has been denied an opportunity to preview the article, the district does not endorse it,” the statement read. “Because we are charged with the education and care of our community’s children, we will always be diligent in our efforts to provide a safe learning environment for all students, while complying with our obligations under the law.”

When asked whether or not Duffel’s job is in jeopardy, district spokeswoman Chelsea Vongehr declined to comment, saying, “We cannot comment on personnel matters.”

With the article set to run, Fink hopes that she can shed light onto an industry that she said should be respected just like any other profession and not be viewed as strictly taboo.

“I just hope that people get more educated about adult entertainers — they’re people, too,” she said.

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